Maryland tourism industry enjoyed a banner 2011 (Baltimore, Frederick: 2014, live, office)

[adelphi_sky]

Visitors to Maryland spent more than $14.3 billion in 2011, the most since 2008, when visitors spent $14.5 billion.
The Maryland Office of Tourism Development announced these and other numbers during the Maryland Annual Tourism & Travel Summit in Cambridge late last week.
Maryland has increased its market share of the national visitor market 17 percent since 2007, far outperforming regional and national trends, Executive Director Margot Amelia wrote in an email to her staff, following the two-day conference. Visitor spending in 2011 was up 7.8 percent from $13.3 billion in 2010.

I think this is great news. It would be interesting to see 2012 when Maryland Live! came on line. Then for next year, the National Children's Museum and the new outlets at NH should add to those numbers. I wonder what Six Flags is doing to be more attractive to outside guests. Any new rides? I haven't been in a while.

[justtitans]

Originally Posted by adelphi_sky

I think this is great news. It would be interesting to see 2012 when Maryland Live! came on line. Then for next year, the National Children's Museum and the new outlets at NH should add to those numbers. I wonder what Six Flags is doing to be more attractive to outside guests. Any new rides? I haven't been in a while.

I really doubt the outlets will have much of an impact next year. They are so far behind. If there is any bad storms that happen this winter, it would be hard to imagine them opening next year at all. National Children's Museum should definitely be a draw though.

[UrbanScholar]

Originally Posted by pgtitans

I really doubt the outlets will have much of an impact next year. They are so far behind. If there is any bad storms that happen this winter, it would be hard to imagine them opening next year at all. National Children's Museum should definitely be a draw though.

Yeah the Outlets are set to open at the end of next year so those numbers should be counted for 2014 when they will have a complete year. They have been able to build the outlets fairly quickly so even with a storm they could get it done by Q4 (their AZ property was completed in 8 months). The problem that could stall them is permits (which PG is known for).

[InvaderBryce]

Six Flags is ghetto.

[slowlane3]

I think the proliferation of thousands of brown tourism directional signs that MD Tourism put up on state roads, back in 2007, was an extravagant waste of millions of dollars. Some of them in southern MD make no sense, directing people to the "Patuxent Corridor" or "Potomac Corridor" - or to obscure colonial churches many miles off the highway.

There is one brown sign in LaPlata in southern MD, directing motorists to turn SOUTH on route 301 to get to the "western Chesapeake Shore." This makes no sense, since Baltimore and Annapolis are on the "western Chesapeake Shore" and are NORTH.

It's almost as silly as the gigantic sign on I-95 south of Fredericksburg VA (paid for by Federal dollars), pointing to the memorial/ burial place of General Stonewall Jackson's amputated arm - which isn't even close to the highway - but involves zig-zagging down 4 different back-roads to finally get to.